And again the game Falcom, and again a direct continuation, and again the first part ends on "continuation". Somewhere we have already seen this … On the one hand, it is always nice to see the continuation of the story you like, but on the other hand, this technique prevents the familiarization with the series at any time. However, for those for whom the history of class VII did not remain indifferent, and who does not have the consoles of the past generation, a small holiday has come, in the form of a version of the version for the PC. And in connection with this event, it would be nice to make out what Falcom presented us this time. Welcome the Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
ATTENTION. Warning. Achtung. 警告. As in the case of Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel 2 is a direct continuation of the first part, and therefore spoilers are possible. So if you have not gone through the first game, or are you just going to join the series, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the review of the first part and if you are interested in passing and the game itself. Otherwise, read at your own peril and risk.
The summary of the final of the first part. The "Nobility faction" began the civil war, captured the capital and squeezes the army on all fronts, and the main fortress of the Eastern Erebonia, which is standing opposite Crossbell, was destroyed without any possibility of resistance. Pupils of the Academy Thors also did not go unnoticed. However, class VII, which includes our heroes, delayed the advance of the army of the nobles, giving time to other students of the Academy to hide. With the help of the so -called “Divine Knight” found in the underground levels of the Academy, the so -called “Divine Knight”, Rin Schwarzer, our main character, detained the main forces, but in the battle with the same knight, due to his inexperience, he was defeated. In connection with the emergency, an emergency evacuation of the knight along with the owner was activated. Rina’s classmates remained to give time to other students of the academy and leave Rin himself, t.To. Rin and his new “friend” can be the key to victory in the Civil War.
From this moment the game itself begins. Rin comes to his senses near Valimar, that very “Divine Knight”, and Selin, cats of one of the classmates of Rin, who belongs to the witch clan Hexen. Selin is trying to reason Rina, but he got angry that he had to leave his friends, does not want to listen and wants to return to the academy. However, Valimar was left without energy for such a flight, t.To. All his systems were concentrated on maintaining the life of a pilot, which almost died during landing. Moreover, this took so much time that a month has passed since the escape from the academy. Looking around in the nearest territories, Rin realized that he was not just at a random point, but is located next to his native village. After some time, our hero is at home, where relatives are already waiting for him. Having learned the current state of affairs, Rin first of all intends to save his classmates, to find out what to do with Valimar and how to help in the civil war.
Actually Valimar himself. A new character and one of the main gameplay innovations of the game, but more on that later.
At this moment I would like to interrupt the retelling of history, t.To. there are a lot of events, but there is neither meaning nor desire to retell all. The story turned out to be somewhat more intense, unlike the first game. If in the first part after each chapter there was some lull with everyday affairs, then in the second, having figured out some problem, a new one immediately begins. Of course, everyday affairs have not gone anywhere, but the emphasis on the main plot events and tension of the situation has become slightly larger. The characters also began to behave a little differently, t.To. Not one day is far from familiar, but the month spent separately from each other had some influence. And most importantly, the characters behave more adequate than you expect. Instead of the clicked “Now we will collect all of ours from the Academy and put on the nobles!"The guys do not participate in the conflict directly. Of course they participate, help the regular army and help the civilian population, but they do not run into the thick of the battle and do not do all the work for others, but simply help as much as possible and try to find their role in this conflict. In general, history leaves quite positive emotions, situations change more often than before, but without problems, unfortunately, it was not done.
The first and most obvious problem at its beginning. Since this is a direct continuation of the first part, you can’t just come to the second and start to understand everything at once. Of course, there is a item with a brief retelling of the main events of the first game in the main menu, but for such a large -scale game, to the top stuffed with dialogs and discussions of plot events, a brief retelling will not be enough as it may seem to turn.
The second problem of the plot component migrated straight from the first game – tightness. The plot, even if crammed with a decent number of various events, sometimes begins to “slip”, and it turned out, not in the best traditions of the original, not very awake. Of course, if the events fly one after another, this is also not good, but some kind of balance for the pace of the narrative could be selected.
Although it is not much sense to https://nogamstop-casinos.co.uk/no-id-required-casinos/ hide it, t.To. There are already 3rd part and even announced the 4th. The game ends as vilely as the first part, with the words “continued”, and ends on a fairly sudden twist, that I only want to throw up his hands to heaven and scream “Yes, what the hell is going on here. "That on the one hand makes the 3rd part wait, but on the other, once again does not give any point. However, this is not the only problem of ending. The most conflicting emotions are most of the epilogue. Those playing in the first part probably remember how the last dungeon was knocked out at the academy. So, here not only was repeated, but also almost just copied in the forehead.
The epilogue itself does not look bad, and if you have closed to the characters, then the last scenes will be quite sad for you. However, after the end of the main story and the Twist there, this epilogue looks just superfluous.
If you have passed at least the first two parts of Trails in the Sky, when passing Trails of Cold Steel 2, you will have a thought “Yes, I have already seen it”. Unfortunately, Falcom did not just make similar scenes, they almost copied them alone, one from their last game.
You can certainly call it a hack, but here I would like to turn on Fanboy and defend the developers. The games of The Legend of Heroes are huge games. Moreover, if in standard JRPG a repetitive gameplay still prevails over the plot, Falcom managed to divide the plot and gameplay equally within the framework of time costs, or even shove more plot and dialogs at all,
than gameplay. Therefore, to come up with something original in the year of development, namely, such a difference between the first and second part in Japan, and even for playing this scale, it is not always possible.
Therefore, I would like to say, do not be so categorical. Of course, the repetition of such scenes rude and does not add pluses, but it does not look so bad given the volume of the material.
There were no touching reunification either.
But if you can still get out with the history of development in the year of development, then it will not work so cunningly with gameplay. Nevertheless, without pleasant innovations, there were not. If you played in the first part, then you can skip this paragraph and go to innovations just below in the text. But for strangers with a series, just in case, we will still give a brief introductory.
The battles begin in the classics: they saw the enemy, ran up, the battle began. We went into the back, get an additional move. Hit in the back before the start of the battle, get 2 additional moves. The combat system here belongs to the classic JRPG, but with some differences. The first difference is movement.
Fights do not just occur on a separate screen, but in a separate arena, in which you can move. Moving in the arena can help avoid the enemy attack and at the same time makes it possible to attack several opponents at the same time.
Among the types of attacks there are standard blows, magic and, a feature of the series, the so -called crafts (Crafts), which are essentially individual physical attacks with different effects and radius of action. Crafts are used in the presence of a separate scale, which is filled in when applying or receiving damage. The advantages of these attacks, they do not require the mandatory use of consumables for their restoration, such as local mana, inflict greater damage than a standard physical attack, and can be used at different distance, depending on the reception itself, although craft can be protective.
There are also so-called S-Craft, especially strong attacks that consume the entire scale, but applying high damage to the enemy, and accompanied. The area of application is the difference depending on the S-Craft itself and the character that uses it. In addition to this, if the character has 200 craft points, the S-Craft force intensifies by 2 times.
Magic is also not quite standardly used. Firstly, magic is not used instantly, it needs a move for preparation, while the enemy can safely bring down the preparation of the spell. Secondly, the spells themselves are not acquired with levels. The characters have an Arcus device where “quarters” are inserted, crystals endowed with certain elements: wind, water, etc.D. The less often quartz, the more spells it will give and the more powerful they are. The number of slots is limited, so you need to carefully select spells for each character. Quarters slots are also subject to improvement, but this is done in the workshop in the city or in the command post, for a certain number of resources, mined from opponents or chests. In addition to this there is also a “master of quartz”, which does not give any spells, but gives an increase in characteristics and a certain feature, for example, enhances the effects of treatment at times. The master quartz is also prone to pumping, but he sways, like the hero, in battle, as it is used. Master quartz can be bought and changed at any time, outside the battle.
Finally the last difference from the standard combat system is the so -called link. In an active batch of up to 4 people, you can connect two characters, due to which, when delivering a successful strike on the enemy, the second character will connect and will be able to deliver an additional blow. With such attacks, additional glasses are accumulated, with a certain number of which you can activate a technique in which both characters attack at the same time, and if there are 2 tied pairs, then with the accumulation of the maximum number of points, the whole active batch will be attacking.
In words it sounds quite confusing, but in fact there are just a few fights to deal with the basics of the combat system.
The demonstrative application of one of the LINK techniques. In this case, a pair of bound characters apply an attack at the same time.
Now let’s talk about innovations in the combat system, of which there are not many, but which can give a significant advantage in contractions with strong opponents.
The first is the Overdrive mode. During the battle, a separate scale is filled, according to the accumulation of which two related characters can be included in the same Overdrive mode. The entrance to this mode restores a small amount of health, mana and craft glasses, increases the strength of attacks, relieves all debuffs, gives in a row 3 strokes for bound characters, and also allows you to instantly use magic. In some situations, such a function allows you to turn the balance of forces, but it will not be possible to use it and it acts only 3 moves, but if it is applied correctly, even a hopeless position can be turned into victory.
The second innovation is Rin’s personal ability – Spirit Unified. In a sense, it is similar to Overdrive, only it acts exclusively on Rina and requires 100 craft points. The entrance to this mode accelerates Rin’s moves, gives him a plus 50% to all attacks and gives immunity to all debuffs. It also does not work for a very long time, but gives an advantage when a difficult fight.
Finally, the main innovation of the combat system is Valimar itself. In the first part, we were allowed to fight on it only 1 time. Now Valimar is becoming a regular participant. At certain points in the plot, Rin calls Valimar on the battlefield, after which, a fight begins in the role of Valimar. Fights at this moment change a little. Battles take place with a small number of opponents, and along with the choice of the enemy, we are given a choice where to hit a particular enemy. Depending on his rack, the blow can be blocked, carried out successfully or completely remove the enemy from balance, in the latter case, as in a normal battle, we are given a chance for an additional attack. Crafts and magic are also available, but magic is used in another way. Only Valimar participates in the battles, but using Link, you can change the connection with the characters and, accordingly, the type of magic, from the elements, to the effect. Such contractions do not last very long and do not appear very often throughout the game, but they bring some variety to the gameplay. Valimara can also be called up in ordinary contractions, from a certain moment, but it operates only 3 moves, is called up 1 time per battle and spends a very large part of the mana scale, so you often won’t use it.
Such battles of course do not shine with high complexity, but you should not yawn. One wrong reception and running to the restart.
There are not many large changes outside the fighting, but they are still available. The first thing that has changed is the central hub. Since the Academy is located on the enemy, you have to look for another place for a general gathering, and this time such a place is the Couragewo Aircraft, which was already flashing in the first part. The aircraft, by the will of the beloved Oliver, is given to the class VII so that they do not sit idle and can quickly come to the rescue when it is necessary. In this hub there is everything you need: a shop, a workshop, a kitchen, an angar for Valimar, a command post, etc.D. However, everything is not available at once, and in order to open new functions and expand them, you need to find students of the academy who managed to escape on the day of the uprising.
And here the second innovation pops up – the open world. Although it is certainly very difficult to call it. In fact, we have before us all the same locations as in the first part, only between them they added corridors to cross between these very locations. However, the further we are moving, the more locations are available. Each location has its own benefits, someone sells exclusive equipment, and somewhere their own set of quests. The third -party quests themselves did not disappear either, only instead of a list of tasks on field exercises from the first part, the assignment is given to us by Oliver himself on the bridge of the ship. There you can also find out the current location of some students of the Academy. There are no special changes in terms of third -party activities, all the same fishing and card game Blade, which was slightly modified. The only thing that was added is a snowboard in the native village of Rina. Simple mini-game, for which they give a couple of useful items.
By the way, they will now let the bike go on a bike. True, he works as a less rotary horse, but every faster than his two. The horse by the way, too, has not gone anywhere.
But now I would like to talk about the weakness – the technical component. Unfortunately, the game has practically never changed graphically. Somewhere, the textures became a little better, somewhere shadows, somewhere the animation was slightly pulled up, but these are so tiny changes that they are generally not visible. Still, the restriction of the budget and the strong attachment to the portable PS vita make themselves felt. By the way, VITA also contains FPS drops. Of course, they arise only with the pile of effects and do not directly interfere, but the eye still cuts.
The port on the PC by the way, according to some players, also did not turn out to be perfect. This of course is far from the level of Capcom of the middle of the two thousandths, but still there were no roughnesses. Someone complains about control from the keyboard, someone on the same fps. Of course, there are not very many similar ones, but still the fact itself is not very pleasant. But the first is at least corrected by connecting the gamepad, which is actually recommended. However, XSEED does not abandon its projects, so the patches in production. Plus, a pleasant bonus for the owners of Trails in the Sky in Steam or GOG is the opportunity to get a skin of the characters there. The bonus is certainly small, but the eye can please. The main thing is the version of the Cold Steel 2 in the same place,
where they took Trails in the Sky, t.To. If you have the first trilogy on Steam, and a new GOG game, then a bonus
You will not get
But at least in sound plan everything is fine as always. Falcom musical unit, still, is not in vain eats your bread.
